Ideas on trade rules for keeper league

[Vedhead19]

I am in a twelve team keeper league in which each team keeps three players (only two can be from one position. ex; 2 RB 1 WR). We have a franchise deadline of August 1 by which each owner has to designate his three players. As our rules state now we cannot trade any players until after this deadline and if we trade a franchised player for a draft pick that draft pick has to be used as one of our keeper spots. I am of the opinion that this is a rule that needs to be changed to allow for trading players prior to the franchise deadline. For example if I had Frank Gore, Jamaal Charles, and Ray Rice and wanted to move one before the franchise deadline for a pick I could do that and then still keep three players along with my pick. The commish and co-commish believe that this would create a "pandora's box" of people moving players they had no intention of franchising in the first place to load up on picks. My question(s) are this...

 

1. Is the rule that is in place as it stands a fairly typical keeper league rule.

2. If the rule is different in your keeper league how is it set up and do you have pros and cons to it.

 

Thanks for the help

[Big Country]

All of the leagues I am in that have keepers allow trading before the keeper declaration, either for picks or for different keepers. In your example, in all of my leagues, I would be allowed to move one of those RBs for a pick or fo, say a strong WR keeper.

 

The whole point is to move players you weren't going to keep to a team that will keep them for a pick or an improved keeper for you.

 

 

The only thing that not allowing trading accomplishes, given your set of rules, is the small possibility of better players making it into the draft pool, but the flipside is that you will also see weaker players forced to be kept if a team was really strong at one position.

[flemingd]

First of all, any change you propose should not affect this year. Owners made decisions and actions based on what they knew to be the rules in place and to change them effectively immediately isn't fair. There are any number of ways an owner can say "if I had known that I would have done X instead of Y".

 

With that out of the way I agree with Big Country. If all owners are required to keep X players then you should allow owners to trade their excess keepers for picks in the upcoming draft. Require an equal number of picks to be traded to keep rosters consistent. For example, trading Rice for a 1st would mean you have to give a pick back, even if it's your last one. Don't let your owners worry about the strong getting stronger because that's heavily mitigated by other owners. Why would someone give you a 1st for Rice when maybe someone else has Blount as an excess and will trade him for a 5th? Or Matt Ryan for a 7th? You'll find owners go cheap very quickly when they realize the alternative is to get nothing.

 

If you don't require all owners to keep a minimum then the trading component isn't as necessary, but still fun, and will drive prices down even more for those with excess so you will see even less of "rich getting richer" impact in these leagues.

[NOSaint237]

Agree with flemingd's first paragraph. Any changes shouldn't take place until next year, UNLESS EVERYONE votes unanimously for the change.

 

In my keeper league we keep 5 and we don't have to give official keepers until draft day. We do however post projected keepers to give everyone a general idea of who's keeping who. We've been having trade talks since the beginning of July which amplifies the fun of your league. Not sure what your commish's are thinking with the "pandora's box theory", but that's kind of the point is to improve your team. If someone wants to trade L. McCoy for a 1rst and 2nd round draft pick for the next 2 years then so be it. Someone in my league actually did that. Anyway, just my 2 cents.